Idk I think that's just a human thing, not an American thing. You value the in-group more than the outgroup. Most people are going to be more emotionally distressed when they find out they left...
Idk I think that's just a human thing, not an American thing. You value the in-group more than the outgroup. Most people are going to be more emotionally distressed when they find out they left their groceries when they were bagging them than when they learn that 20,000 people died in the Sudanese civil war.
Human empathy tends to be strongly local. We are a species that lived mostly in small tribes for almost the entirety of our existence. That there are 7 billion humans, and we have a way to know when some of those are killing each other thousands of miles away, is a very strange thing.
It's not really about "excuses", it's just not an America-specific phenomena. People care far more about "their" in-group than the out-group. Random civilian casualties on the news is a statistic;...
It's not really about "excuses", it's just not an America-specific phenomena. People care far more about "their" in-group than the out-group. Random civilian casualties on the news is a statistic; one of "your" soldiers dying, you can imagine as one of your neighbor's kids. That'll be a thing everywhere you go in the world.
The other side of this coin is that (ideally, and often genuinely) the line of thinking applies just as much to caring about the impact caused by the in-group. If harm to them is an echo of harm...
The other side of this coin is that (ideally, and often genuinely) the line of thinking applies just as much to caring about the impact caused by the in-group. If harm to them is an echo of harm to the individual, and pride in-group achievements - or, more often, achievements of unrelated individuals within the group - is pride shared by the individual, then shame or guilt in the actions of the group reflects back on the individual too.
The difference in emotional proximity may broadly be human nature - although I’m not really convinced that seeing a nation state in particular as the in-group is as universal as you might expect - but either way I sincerely hope that the average person would care just as much if their neighbour’s kid killed someone, or burned down a building, as they would if that same kid were the victim.
The idea that US troops are emotionally close enough to mourn, but that deaths on the other side are just that: abstract “deaths on the other side”, rather than killings at the hands of those US troops who people feel that emotional kinship with, is something that absolutely warrants introspection.
And as with the hypothetical neighbour’s kid, context matters. If they killed someone in the legitimate defence of other innocent people, they would have my sympathy for ending up in such a traumatic situation. If they killed someone in an armed robbery gone wrong, I would be utterly disgusted, angry, and dismayed. But either way I’d care.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by desensitization. There has been a long campaign since sometime after Vietnam to get the American public to stop treating troops like garbage. We’re in a...
How did this happen? Did the Vietnam war completely desensitize the American psyche from being able to grapple with these sorts of questions?
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by desensitization.
There has been a long campaign since sometime after Vietnam to get the American public to stop treating troops like garbage. We’re in a pendulum swing right now, and what you hear around you will vary based on where you live.
Troops after Vietnam came home to being called baby killers. They couldn’t get jobs. They were turned out of their homes. I wasn’t alive yet at this time, but I was in the military as an adult and heard how awful it was for those returning home, basically in shame.
I’m not saying that any of what is happening now is okay, I’m offering some historical context.
That being said, the one thing I despise about America, that cannot be chocked up to media manipulation or elite control, is how Americans value the lives of servicemen/women against foreign civilians.
I don’t really agree with comparing the deaths of service people with those on the receiving end of our attacks in the eyes of most people. When a (usually white) troop is killed in a way the media finds to be a good story, the news will be full of pretty much the complete life story of that person. What a tragedy, look at the promise they showed, promise that will never be fulfilled. It’s the exact same shorthand used in all those cop/fire department shows to make you quickly feel empathy for a victim.
Meanwhile, all we get for the victims on the other side are numbers. There are of course more personal stories out there, but unless you’re looking at the source of one of those, you have to seek them out. Numbers are far too abstract for the average person to grasp in the middle of a newsfeed full of 30 second clips.
This is propaganda. The public is being manipulated with techniques that have not only been honed over decades, they have been set up to accept without question.
It's also been a long standing propaganda campaign to paint soldiers as heros, with the aid of Hollywood and all the "thank you for your service" salute the flag and uniform stuff.
It's also been a long standing propaganda campaign to paint soldiers as heros, with the aid of Hollywood and all the "thank you for your service" salute the flag and uniform stuff.
Also, as a note, the idea that Vietnam somehow desensitized us when probably over half our population wasn't born at the time, and we frankly don't get taught about it often given how history...
Also, as a note, the idea that Vietnam somehow desensitized us when probably over half our population wasn't born at the time, and we frankly don't get taught about it often given how history class is set up (and we prefer to teach about the "good" wars where we won against the bad guys). They spent a long time rehabilitating the military image.
Personally I'd argue we're pretty desensitized to the death of soldiers too. The media leans in on the jingoistic propaganda of flag covered coffins, but our current president doesn't honor them, and we've been in an active conflict for almost my entire adult life.
9/11 happened my senior year of high school. Even as a child we had ads like these on TV and before movies:
Be a marine and be a superhero, run towards death and danger, and be brave, young white men (mostly).
And as you said, media never talks about civilian deaths in any but the vaguest terms and often repeats Pentagon or Presidential claims about it being no big deal. The stories are there but often from foreign news or smaller publications and those don't play 24/7 in our doctor lobbies.
It's not an excuse, but it absolutely is propaganda and many people are speaking up about it. It's just hard to break through the constant noise.
The American regime is on my dislike list right now, but in defence of the American peoples, I do think perhaps you're downplaying the factor behind media manipulation: money. The American people...
The American regime is on my dislike list right now, but in defence of the American peoples, I do think perhaps you're downplaying the factor behind media manipulation: money.
The American people give to charities at the highest rates: and that used to be directed to AIDS benefit or starving kids in Africa etc, but slowly eroded over the decades towards charity at home, then CVS shopping from the couch, then endless local tragedy go fund mes, then being too debt ridden to give. This is the result of a sustained attack on the middle and lower classes, to suppress wages, to break unions, to reduce taxes on highest earners, to legalize senate insider trading and allowing drug CEOs to own hospitals and insurance companies, make libraries form their own non-profits, subsidize Walmart starvation wages and cut school lunches. When citizens have a lot of stuff but live on a razor thin margin from homelessness and poverty, make kids feel scared about going to school, when there's a lot of dangers/lack at home, then international concern sounds like bledding-heart nonsense.
I already mentioned war films and copaganda shows with nearly unlimited budgets, and how that contributed to the Team America: World Police mindset. It's a shame that this decades long sustained and well funded attacks has turned America (the state) into a bad world citizen, but it wasn't natural, and America is not uniquely bad.
This isn’t the focus of your post, but since it was written I want to address it (without taking a position on it). America is a representative democracy and the government’s actions do represent...
This isn’t the focus of your post, but since it was written I want to address it (without taking a position on it).
America is a representative democracy and the government’s actions do represent the will of the people. Setting aside everything we could say about gerrymandering, Citizens United, ballot access, etc: a majority of American neighbors - in the broadest sense - voted for this or couldn’t be bothered to vote against it.
Alternatively, it’s not a representative democracy.
So we American voters have no agency? Also, how is it that many of us -- though unfortunately not enough of us -- knew that Trump and Vance and MAGA and the GOP were full of shit (and continue to...
So we American voters have no agency?
Also, how is it that many of us -- though unfortunately not enough of us -- knew that Trump and Vance and MAGA and the GOP were full of shit (and continue to be)? We knew the whole "peace president" shtick was exactly that.
Even if people truly didn't vote for war, I'm not ready to absolve them. Because they voted for all the other terrible stuff that's going on. They don't get a pass because they didn't vote for this one thing, among all the other awfulness they did vote for in the name of cheaper eggs or whatever.
Idk I think that's just a human thing, not an American thing. You value the in-group more than the outgroup. Most people are going to be more emotionally distressed when they find out they left their groceries when they were bagging them than when they learn that 20,000 people died in the Sudanese civil war.
Human empathy tends to be strongly local. We are a species that lived mostly in small tribes for almost the entirety of our existence. That there are 7 billion humans, and we have a way to know when some of those are killing each other thousands of miles away, is a very strange thing.
It do be what it do be.
It's not really about "excuses", it's just not an America-specific phenomena. People care far more about "their" in-group than the out-group. Random civilian casualties on the news is a statistic; one of "your" soldiers dying, you can imagine as one of your neighbor's kids. That'll be a thing everywhere you go in the world.
The other side of this coin is that (ideally, and often genuinely) the line of thinking applies just as much to caring about the impact caused by the in-group. If harm to them is an echo of harm to the individual, and pride in-group achievements - or, more often, achievements of unrelated individuals within the group - is pride shared by the individual, then shame or guilt in the actions of the group reflects back on the individual too.
The difference in emotional proximity may broadly be human nature - although I’m not really convinced that seeing a nation state in particular as the in-group is as universal as you might expect - but either way I sincerely hope that the average person would care just as much if their neighbour’s kid killed someone, or burned down a building, as they would if that same kid were the victim.
The idea that US troops are emotionally close enough to mourn, but that deaths on the other side are just that: abstract “deaths on the other side”, rather than killings at the hands of those US troops who people feel that emotional kinship with, is something that absolutely warrants introspection.
And as with the hypothetical neighbour’s kid, context matters. If they killed someone in the legitimate defence of other innocent people, they would have my sympathy for ending up in such a traumatic situation. If they killed someone in an armed robbery gone wrong, I would be utterly disgusted, angry, and dismayed. But either way I’d care.
I’m not exactly sure what you mean by desensitization.
There has been a long campaign since sometime after Vietnam to get the American public to stop treating troops like garbage. We’re in a pendulum swing right now, and what you hear around you will vary based on where you live.
Troops after Vietnam came home to being called baby killers. They couldn’t get jobs. They were turned out of their homes. I wasn’t alive yet at this time, but I was in the military as an adult and heard how awful it was for those returning home, basically in shame.
I’m not saying that any of what is happening now is okay, I’m offering some historical context.
I don’t really agree with comparing the deaths of service people with those on the receiving end of our attacks in the eyes of most people. When a (usually white) troop is killed in a way the media finds to be a good story, the news will be full of pretty much the complete life story of that person. What a tragedy, look at the promise they showed, promise that will never be fulfilled. It’s the exact same shorthand used in all those cop/fire department shows to make you quickly feel empathy for a victim.
Meanwhile, all we get for the victims on the other side are numbers. There are of course more personal stories out there, but unless you’re looking at the source of one of those, you have to seek them out. Numbers are far too abstract for the average person to grasp in the middle of a newsfeed full of 30 second clips.
This is propaganda. The public is being manipulated with techniques that have not only been honed over decades, they have been set up to accept without question.
It's also been a long standing propaganda campaign to paint soldiers as heros, with the aid of Hollywood and all the "thank you for your service" salute the flag and uniform stuff.
Also, as a note, the idea that Vietnam somehow desensitized us when probably over half our population wasn't born at the time, and we frankly don't get taught about it often given how history class is set up (and we prefer to teach about the "good" wars where we won against the bad guys). They spent a long time rehabilitating the military image.
Personally I'd argue we're pretty desensitized to the death of soldiers too. The media leans in on the jingoistic propaganda of flag covered coffins, but our current president doesn't honor them, and we've been in an active conflict for almost my entire adult life.
9/11 happened my senior year of high school. Even as a child we had ads like these on TV and before movies:
Be a marine and be a superhero, run towards death and danger, and be brave, young white men (mostly).
And as you said, media never talks about civilian deaths in any but the vaguest terms and often repeats Pentagon or Presidential claims about it being no big deal. The stories are there but often from foreign news or smaller publications and those don't play 24/7 in our doctor lobbies.
It's not an excuse, but it absolutely is propaganda and many people are speaking up about it. It's just hard to break through the constant noise.
The American regime is on my dislike list right now, but in defence of the American peoples, I do think perhaps you're downplaying the factor behind media manipulation: money.
The American people give to charities at the highest rates: and that used to be directed to AIDS benefit or starving kids in Africa etc, but slowly eroded over the decades towards charity at home, then CVS shopping from the couch, then endless local tragedy go fund mes, then being too debt ridden to give. This is the result of a sustained attack on the middle and lower classes, to suppress wages, to break unions, to reduce taxes on highest earners, to legalize senate insider trading and allowing drug CEOs to own hospitals and insurance companies, make libraries form their own non-profits, subsidize Walmart starvation wages and cut school lunches. When citizens have a lot of stuff but live on a razor thin margin from homelessness and poverty, make kids feel scared about going to school, when there's a lot of dangers/lack at home, then international concern sounds like bledding-heart nonsense.
I already mentioned war films and copaganda shows with nearly unlimited budgets, and how that contributed to the Team America: World Police mindset. It's a shame that this decades long sustained and well funded attacks has turned America (the state) into a bad world citizen, but it wasn't natural, and America is not uniquely bad.
This isn’t the focus of your post, but since it was written I want to address it (without taking a position on it).
America is a representative democracy and the government’s actions do represent the will of the people. Setting aside everything we could say about gerrymandering, Citizens United, ballot access, etc: a majority of American neighbors - in the broadest sense - voted for this or couldn’t be bothered to vote against it.
Alternatively, it’s not a representative democracy.
So we American voters have no agency?
Also, how is it that many of us -- though unfortunately not enough of us -- knew that Trump and Vance and MAGA and the GOP were full of shit (and continue to be)? We knew the whole "peace president" shtick was exactly that.
Even if people truly didn't vote for war, I'm not ready to absolve them. Because they voted for all the other terrible stuff that's going on. They don't get a pass because they didn't vote for this one thing, among all the other awfulness they did vote for in the name of cheaper eggs or whatever.
We literally voted for this.